


Security

by slash4femme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 03:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: The first time Kakashi can remember wearing something that covers his face he's three.





	Security

The first time Kakashi can remember wearing something that covers his face he's three.

His father brings home all new clothes for him one night since Kakashi has just grown out of his older ones. Sakumo spreads the clothes out across the living room floor for Kakashi to look at. Kakashi runs his hands over shorts and shirts feeling the fabrics under his fingers. Some types of fabrics make him itch like little bugs trying to burrow under his skin but these seem soft and comfortable enough. He picks up one of the garments, a long strip of wood cloth and frowns at it.

"It's a scarf," Sakumo says smiling at him. "To keep you warm when it gets cold enough to snow."

His father laughs a little at Kakashi's puzzled expression and takes the scarf away from him looping it around Kakashi's neck. It's quite a long scarf and Kakashi isn't all that big so it ends up standing stiffly covering up his face almost to his eyes.

His father laughs again and ruffles his hair.

Kakashi brings a hand up to touch his face, where the fabric presses against his chin and cheeks. It's a little bit scratchy, the fine hairs tickling his nose and lips but it also feels good. He breaths out and feels the cloth move against his mouth. It feels  ... nice, comforting. The scarf blocks out some of the smells that are always too much, making his head ache and his chest go tight. Having the cloth there feels safe too, like a barrier between him and the world, which is so often overwhelming. It's just nice.

His father reaches up again to unwind the scarf and Kakashi lifts up his own hands to stop him.

"No."

"It's a little hot to wear a scarf Kakashi." Sakumo eyebrows go up and he shakes his head. "But I suppose if you want to keep wearing it, it's fine. Now go put these new clothes away, dinner will be ready soon."  
Kakashi does as he's told although he doesn't put away the scarf. 

The real issue arrives when it's time for bed. Kakashi gets dressed in his pajamas as he does every night and then winds the scarf carefully around his face again.

Sakumo though shakes his head. "Not while you're sleeping, the scarf could twist around your neck and hurt you." He says using the tone that means he expects to be obeyed without argument.  
Kakashi doesn't want to take the scarf off. Being without it while he got ready for bed had made his stomach feel all cold and twisted up. Having the scarf on just feels better, but Kakashi doesn't fuss.

Baby's fuss. Kakashi can hit the center of a target with his shuriken every time, even when he's throwing five at once and dodge every one that is thrown at him. He can even make his own shadow clones. Kakashi is definitely not a baby.

He takes off the scarf and puts it away with the rest of his clothes.

He might sniffle a little bit when he crawls into bed beside his father but he doesn't fuss.

The next morning as soon as he gets up though he puts the scarf back on.

Sakumo gives him a slightly worried look when Kakashi comes into breakfast wearing the scarf again, but he doesn't argue or even mention it.

By the time Kakashi's done with his morning training though he has to admit Sakumo had been right about the scarf being too hot. It's gone all sticky with sweat around his neck and there's a wet patch where he's been breathing into the wool. Plus some of the fuzzy bits have worked their way into his mouth.

He pulls the scarf down far enough to spit them out grimacing as he does so.

From the other side of the house, there is the sound of the front gate opening and shutting.

"Kakashi," Sakumo calls, "come here a moment, I have something for you."

Kakashi runs to see what it is.

His father doesn't often buy him presents and he just got new clothes yesterday.

His father holds out a package as Kakashi finishes wrestling off his sandals. His smiles as Kakashi undoes the string and pulls the paper off.

It's another scarf, made out of lightweight cotton this time. It's blue with a circle pattern down the middle.

The cloth is so soft and lightweight that it doesn't stand up enough to cover his face right away as the wool had. It's very long though and he finds that if he wraps it around himself enough times it covers him just like the other scarf.

It's also so much better than the other scarf. The cotton isn't scratchy or fuzzy the way the wool had been. He can more easily breathe through it and he likes the way it moulds to the shape of his cheeks, mouth and nose when he reaches up to press it against his face. It feels wonderful.

He grins up at his father behind the scarf. Sakumo smiles back and ruffles his hair.

"You can wear it as much as you like as long as wearing it doesn't interfere with your training." He says "And you still can't sleep in it."

Kakashi's too happy about the new scarf to care about whether or not he can sleep in it.

Instead, he takes his father's hand and drags him out back to spar and practice taijutsu for the rest of the afternoon.

At bedtime, he solves the problem of not having anything to cover his face with by taking a cloth Sakumo usually wears over his hair when he cleans the house and tying it securely over the lower half of his face instead.

Sakumo doesn't tell him to take it off so Kakashi assumes it's okay.

***

  
He wears the scarf every day and the cloth around his face at night. 

Not wearing something that covers his face quickly comes to feel strange. It's upsetting to be bare like that, it makes his hands sweat and his stomach twist up into knots.

Not that it matters, he has his scarf and things are fine.

Right up until he gets accepted into the Academy.

Kakashi knows that when he starts attending the Academy he'll have a new wardrobe. They've talked about, his father and him. Many Academy students from shinobi families get standard outfits that combine the clan symbol with some form of shinobi gear so that the students can become accustomed to dressing the way will out in the field. Many in fact will continue to wear a variation of these outfits for the rest of their lives. Getting this new wardrobe is a right of passage, a clans acknowledgement that the new Academy students will soon be counted amongst the clan's shinobi.

Some of his shirts will, in fact, have the Hatake clan symbol on them, but most of his outfits will be plain, black and grey mimicking standard issues Konoha shinobi uniforms.

His scarf is almost certainly not going to be included in his new wardrobe.

This realization comes to him the night before Sakumo goes to pick up the new clothes.

He's been eating dinner but the thought of having to attend the Academy with his face uncovered turns the food to lead in his stomach. He'll have to work in the field like that too, every smell too intense for him to handle and everyone looking at his uncovered face.

Panic lodges in his chest but he forces it away.

A shinobi's life is sacrifice. He's heard that often enough. Whenever Sakumo has to take away a toy or something Kakashi wants he tells him that Kakashi needs to learn to sacrifice the little things so he'll be prepared for the larger sacrifices later. Not wearing the scarf is a little sacrifice in the grand scheme of things but it doesn't make it hurt any less.     
He has tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he gets ready for bed. 

He can still wear whatever he wants to when he's at home, he tells himself but it doesn't really help unknot his insides or make him feel less like crying.

  
Shinobi aren't supposed to cry so Kakashi holds the tears back as he uncoils his scarf and put it with the rest of his clothes and ties the cloth over his face instead. 

He climbs into bed and lays beside his father's big, warm bulk. A few tears leak out of the corners of his eyes and wet the fabric over his face, but Kakashi bites his lip so he doesn't make a sound.

He doesn't sleep very well that night.

The next day he drags his feet going to pick up his new clothes and then on the way home.

His anxiety over having to go attend the Academy with his face uncovered has completely killed any excitement for finally getting his first ninja clothes.

Back at home he dutifully watches as his father unwraps the packages of clothes and shows him the different outfits. Long pants and a long sleeve shirt that zips up the front for cooler days and shorts and a short sleeve shirt for when it was hot out, with a few pairs of each just to make sure he'll have enough. The short sleeve shirts all have the Hatake clan symbol on the backs. There are also clothes to wrap his legs and a new pair of sandals and a shinobi utility belt for when he actually does go out in the field. And a new set of shuriken, not practical ones either, gleaming with deadly intent.

"And this." Sakumo holds up a piece of black fabric and Kakashi blinks not sure what he's looking at.

"What is it?"     

"It's a mask."

Kakashi's eyes go wide and his father smiles at him and holds it out.

Slowly Kakashi unwinds his scarf and lays it aside, then reaches for the mask. It takes him a moment to figure out how to pull it over his head and get it on. It's long, going all the way down his neck and covering a little bit at the top of his chest. The top part goes all the way up fitting snugly across the lower half of his face and the bridge of his nose and then curving down away from his eyes as not to interfere with his vision at all.

Kakashi gets it adjusted correctly and then reaches one hand up to touch. It feels, different, tight, a light sort of pressure against the lower half of his face. It moulds to the shape of his jaw, his chin, his lips and nose better than even the cotton had. He breaths out and then hums noting that it doesn't get moist from his breath or muffle his voice.

It's perfect, it feels amazing to wear, secure, snug and comforting all at once.

He feels tear gather at the corners of his eyes and blinks them away.

"Thank you."

Sakumo hugs him, pulling Kakashi tight against his chest.

"It's not so strange Kakashi many shinobi wear masks." Sakumo ruffles his hair.

Kakashi nods where his face is still pressed tight against his father's shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this really as a way to work through my headcanons for how Kakashi came to wear a mask and why he does so. I also originally meant it to be part of a longer work focused on Kakashi's childhood friendship with Gai, which I still might get to at some point. Still, I thought this stood well enough on its own to share it.


End file.
